She alone witnessed the crime. Peering across the room, her intelligent eyes tracked his silent motion toward the door, observing his catlike ease in slipping behind it. Her acute sense of hearing registered his cruel deed. When she could take it no more, she blurted out, “No, no, no!” Over and over she screamed it.
That's when Lucy's mother walked over to the shouting 16 month-old, asking what it was that so upset her. The pantry door—now open—revealed the crime and the criminal: Lucy’s two year old brother Caleb had snitched a number of snacks, the sound of the crinkling cellophane betraying his otherwise secret endeavor.
There was absolutely no way Lucy was going to let her older brother get away with snarfing snacks she herself was denied. Whether whistle blower Lucy's sin nature was developed enough to savor her tattletale victory, I cannot say.
But I do know this. There is a time for Christ followers to blurt out a resounding no, as Lucy did. Not for the shallow purpose of being a tattletale, but simply because a thing is wrong. 1:15
The Bible tells us greed is a sin. We need to shout no.
The Bible tells us divorce is not His plan. We need to shout no.
The Bible tells us homosexuality is perverse. We need to shout no.
The Bible tells us worry is a sin. We need to shout no.
The Bible tells us prayerlessness is a wasted life. We need to shout no.
The Bible tells us that staring at immodestly dressed women—whether on line, on TV, or wherever—is sin. We need to shout no!
In a culture dying to say yes to almost anything, Ephesians 5:5 reminds us “No immoral or impure person or covetous man, who is an idolater, has an inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.”
It’s time we relearned how to shout no.